Barrichello departs the shadowlands

British Grand Prix: Schumacher's greatest challenge now comes from within as his No 2 finds the form of his life

"You know," Rubens Barrichello admitted at this season's Canadian Grand Prix, at the beginning of the month, "the night before the Austrian Grand Prix I had told a friend that if Ferrari asked me to give away the race like they did the previous year, I was going to tell them..." Well, suffice it to say he was going to say no. So why, then, did he go on to concede the race, after all, to his team-mate Michael Schumacher?

"My friend reminded me that I had just signed a two-year contract with the team," Barrichello smiled sheepishly as he recalled the moment. "I thought it over and decided I should honour that."

In some ways this is the best time of the 30-year-old Brazilian's Formula One career, but what happened in Austria last month when he had to pull over yards from victory to present Michael Schumacher with the win also made it the worst. As Gerhard Berger once discovered at McLaren, being in the world's best motor-racing team is wonderful – until you discover that the man in the other car (in Berger's case it was Ayrton Senna) is quicker than you are.

But what has made it tougher still for Barrichello is the feeling that he is becoming better and better as a racing driver, but is not being allowed to show it. The years of 2000 and 2001 were disappointing as Schumacher destroyed him, although Hockenheim in his first season at Ferrari yielded his first Grand Prix win. But this season he has consistently challenged the world champion in qualifying, and in Austria he had him beaten in the race as well, until Ferrari's sporting director Jean Todt came on the radio.

Barrichello made a good job of hiding his true feelings that day. "It's not as if I haven't had experience of doing it," he said. "I was asked to do it, it was a team decision, and I don't think I should say anything. You know, I am going through a very good period in my life. I think I am a better person as a result, and I know I am a better racing driver. So why argue?"

How about because it was manifestly unfair? Almost as unfair as the FIA's feeble attempt to administer belated justice in Paris last week when Schumacher and Barrichello were fined $1m (half of it suspended) for their capers on the victory rostrum when Schumacher pushed Barrichello on to the winner's podium. Why should Barrichello be fined, when it was Schumacher who stole the win via team orders, and who thrust his team-mate forwards when he realised that the spectators were booing him?

None of this seems to have bothered Barrichello overmuch, and doubtless Ferrari will pay in any case since the money represents only what they spend per day on Formula One.

Though Barrichello is one of the most emotional men in Formula One he says that he did not feel insulted when Schumacher insisted that he take the victor's trophy. "Actually, I was happy about that. I had promised it to my wife before the race, so I gave it to her because it was her birthday, and to my mother, because it was Mother's Day."

When Barrichello first joined Ferrari he said that if he was pushing hard and was clearly the faster driver, Ferrari would be wise to let him win. Yet that time came and went in Austria, and he was obliged to play second fiddle. "I think that everybody saw what happened in the race, and that it was one of the best races of my life. But I don't think the time had come," he counters now. "What matters is what you have inside your mind. My time will definitely come, if I stay determined."

First sign of that came last weekend in Germany, where he beat Schumacher in the Grand Prix of Europe. He made the better start, and fought on equal terms with his team-mate until the second pit stops. Then Ferrari told them not to race so they played follow-my-leader. But this time the boot was on the other foot.

Fearful of what the FIA might do at the hearing the following Wednesday, Ferrari did not want to play the team-orders card so blatantly again. Whether Schumacher liked it or not, he was obliged to follow Barrichello home. But when you have a 46-point advantage over your closest challenger (who just happens to be your brother) and there are only eight races left to go, you can afford to be magnanimous once in a while.

But one victory in a season certainly does not mean that Ferrari will have the courage Ron Dennis showed at McLaren when he let Senna and Alain Prost race one another in the Eighties, but going into the British Grand Prix at Silverstone next weekend Barrichello has his tail up and is feeling optimistic that more victories will follow.

Back in 2000 he looked a likely winner there as he outpaced Schumacher, only for hydraulic failure to sideline him. "I enjoy the circuit and the atmosphere there very much," he says. "For me it's like a home as well because I've been testing there for so long and I hope that the weather is OK. It's going to be a good race."

If it is a test for him, so too will it be for the track itself, which has been so severely criticised after the mud-bath fiasco in 2000. Many believed that the threats to the race issued in the aftermath by the FIA, the sport's governing body, were just sabre-rattling.

But Colin Hilton, chief executive of Britain's sporting authority, the Motor Sports Association, disagrees. "The threat to the 2002 British Grand Prix was serious and now it is only the continued commitment of Octagon Motorsports and the British Racing Drivers' Club to redevelop the Silverstone site – with the ongoing support of the MSA as race organiser – that will secure the future of this event."

The MSA instigated a far-reaching traffic inquiry and has kept the FIA fully informed of construction work on the development of the Dadford Road and the infamous A43 Silverstone bypass, both of which will be ready for the race traffic.

Barrichello, meanwhile, will be out to exploit his reputation as the closest team-mate Schumacher has had. "Like I said, I think I am in a good period in my life and it's making me a better driver. And I'm enjoying my racing. I feel relaxed about it. I'm letting it flow."